


Everything

by martygalwrites



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Bad At Tagging, My sweet angel babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 17:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19795249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martygalwrites/pseuds/martygalwrites
Summary: Mike and El have nothing to do but wait on the back of an ambulance, and they spend this brief little eye-of-the-storm taking care of each other. Just like they always have.





	Everything

**Author's Note:**

> for the wives, of course

El could feel _everything_.

She could feel the tiny needle and thread that was stitching into her shin, pulling her skin back together so slowly that it was absolutely _agonizing_ to endure. She could feel the muscles in her arms and shoulders shaking from overuse, or exhaustion, or shock, or a toxic combination of the three. She could feel the constant ringing that reverberated in her skull, like a blaring alarm with no off switch. She could feel a weight too, resting so pointedly on her shoulders, that she knew wouldn’t lift until Joyce and Hopper returned.

They would scoop them all up. Scold them and dust them off and bring them home. Get their stories straight. Take everyone back to their families, one by one.

_This has to be a strange tradition_ , El thought to herself as she tried to focus on anything other than the woman stitching into her flesh like she was some kind of garment. _But that’s what this is now. A tradition._

“Shouldn’t be much longer,” the nurse said as El winced after a particularly rough pull of the suture. “Only a few more stitches to go.”

El sighed and closed her eyes to avoid the gory scene in front of her, though it barely held a candle to everything else she’d seen over the gruesome course of the past several days. Those images flashed behind her closed eyelids and she shuttered them back open to stare blearily at the haze of flashing lights and bodies running in and out of the mall doors.

But instead of the scene she was expecting, she opened her eyes to find Mike standing in front of her, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a white bandage taped to his forehead. The dried blood on the side of his nose had been wiped away, and he gave El a weak smile as he motioned to the empty space beside her. He had been there since the medics had all arrived, and was only pulled away to have his own wound cleaned up. El nodded for him to sit back down.

“I didn’t need any stitches,” he said as he hoisted himself up to sit on El’s right side. “So that’s some good news at least.”

“But will you have a badass scar?” El asked, raising her eyebrows to tease him.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, letting out the smallest laugh. “Probably not. Nothing like yours.” El’s heart fluttered, but she refocused.

“Did you see Max?”

“Yeah, she’s just shocked. That’s all. She’s not hurt.” he replied. “Just kind of… _staring_. Lucas is sitting with her.”

“Did you tell her I said I was sorry?”

“Yes, El, but I still don’t think you needed to.”

But she _did_ need to. Mike was wrong. El couldn’t save him like Max needed her to and it crushed her in the most painful way.

“What did she say?”

“She said she was sorry, too.”

“What is _she_ sorry for…” El asked under her breath, folding her arms across her chest.

Mike just shrugged his shoulders and stared blankly ahead, scanning the crowd for Joyce or Hopper just like El had been doing minutes prior. After a few beats of silence, he wordlessly pulled the blanket from around his shoulders to drape it around the pair of them. She realized then that she had been shivering, despite the humid July night.

“All done,” the nurse cut in, securing the last bit of tape on the bandage she had been fashioning. El hadn’t even noticed her working since Mike sat down next to her. “Just remember to tell your parents to change the gauze every couple of hours. Even overnight.”

El let out a small and raspy “Thanks,” and Mike nodded as she packed up the last of her medical kit and turned to address another person’s grisly wounds.

“Everyone else?” El asked as soon as the nurse walked to her next station.

Mike nodded.

“They’re okay. You definitely have the worst of it. Steve has a pretty nasty black eye, but yours is way _way_ worse.”

El smiled a little.

“Who hit Steve this time?”

Mike laughed at that one. Just a little chuckle slipped out – nothing too loud.

“I don’t know. I think one of the Russians maybe? I haven’t heard the full story yet. I can’t believe Dustin was trapped down there with them for twenty-four whole hours…”

El dropped her head onto Mike’s shoulder as she listened to him piece together all the seemingly awesome parts of their eventful evening, hoping that the combination of his voice and his body heat would do something to ease the incessant ringing in her ears. It pulsated all through her head, almost like her brain had turned itself into a heart and it was trying to pump the blood back into her skull. Trying to recuperate. Scrambling to heal itself. But she didn’t want to think about that. Not right now.

She closed her eyes again and drew in a long, shaky breath. She linked her arm around Mike’s and at the gesture he crossed his left leg with her right, swinging them slightly as they dangled off the back of the ambulance. It almost felt back to normal, despite their absolutely _not_ normal surroundings.

“Is your head feeling any better?” he asked.

“A little.”

It wasn’t a lie. He was at least doing a good job of pulling her focus to something else. Anything else.

“That’s good. That’s a good sign, right?”

El nodded. She just wanted him to keep talking so she could keep hearing his voice. Earlier in the night, she had been scared she would never get to hear it again.

“Mike.”

“Hmm?”

“Tell me something good…” _Tell me what you were trying to say earlier_. “Please?”

“Well, good news is my mom always makes an apple pie for the Fourth of July and she probably has it out at home right now and after this we can go and I’ll cut you however big a slice you want. Seriously. Even if you want half the pie.”

El felt a small smile creep across her face.

“And I was thinking of biking to the video store next week to grab some movies for us and we can watch them together. If you want. I promise I’ll get stuff you like. No scary movies.”

A giggle escaped her, and she almost had to cover her mouth with her hand to conceal it. It felt wrong to laugh in this atmosphere, but it was never wrong to laugh with him.

“And I’m going to talk to Hopper I think. When they get back. I’m going to tell him I’m sorry for being such an asshole. I mean, he just _cares_ about you. Just like I do. He just… I mean… he just worries…”

Mike continued to stumble over his words, and adorably so in El’s opinion. She knew what he was trying to say, even though he couldn’t quite get it out the way he wanted.

“Hey,” she cut him off from his ramblings, and he seemed grateful, sighing and looking down at her face that was nuzzled into his shoulder.

“You’re my boyfriend again?” she asked, looking up and into his eyes for the first time since he’d sat next to her. They were bleary with shed tears and bloodshot from exhaustion. They shone with the array of red, white and blue flashing lights that surrounded them on all sides, but they lit up even more at her question.

“Well… I mean… if you want…”

She didn’t want him to suffer through another stammering sentence, she really didn’t. No matter how amusing or endearing.

“I do,” she smiled up at him. It all seemed so small compared to everything that was happening around them. The wailing sirens in the distance. The soldiers and their stomping boots. The choppers spinning their blades above their heads.

It also felt like the most important thing she could say. It was the last little shred of their life before all of this, and she wanted to cling to it.

“Okay, me too,” Mike said, that dopey smile of his that she loved _oh so much_ spreading quickly across his face. It caused the tape on his bandage to pucker a little.

El moved her left hand up to his face so she could whisper something in his ear, and he leaned in closer so he could hear. Just like he always did. Just like they had before.

“You were right, earlier,” she whispered, “Being broken up is hard. And it’s stupid.”

She rested her chin on his shoulder, waiting for him to whisper some sweet nothings right back to her. He took a minute, looking down.

“Yeah,” Mike said solemnly, looking at their swinging feet, “Let’s never do it again.”

She felt him tense up against her right after he said it, probably kicking himself mentally for being too forward or whatever but she didn’t mind it at all. She wasn’t fazed. She understood. She agreed. He was silly to think that she wouldn’t.

“Okay,” she replied, talking him off of his mental ledge. She pressed a kiss to his cheek before settling back down to his side. “We won’t.”

It was back to waiting for now, but Mike was doing a good job of distracting her from what lied ahead. He always did. Ever so briefly, El felt calm. Happy, in a strange way. Her family was safe. Mike was safe. Max was safe. Hopper and Joyce would charge back on to the scene any minute now. El smiled as she moved her hand down from Mike’s arm to grasp onto his hand, and they fit together like two puzzle pieces. Just like they always had.

And El could feel _everything_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, and thank you for your kind words!! I had to put it in writing that El and Mike "officially" got "back together" bc it just... needed to be clarified apparently. But here we are. 
> 
> Be my friend on tumblr and lets cry together: @martygalwrites <3


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